Newspaper Prayers: Thursday, October 12th

(Below are excerpts from an editorial by Nicholas Kristof, who has spent years covering Asia and has recently visited North Korea.)

On just the first day of a war between the United States and North Korea, according to a Stanford University assessment, one million people could be killed.

Yet after my five-day visit to North Korea with three New York Times colleagues, such a nuclear war seems terrifyingly imaginable. In the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, it was clear that President Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea had backfired and is being exploited by Kim Jong-un for his own propaganda and military mobilization.

The first misconception is that sanctions and talk of war will lead North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Every North Korean official we spoke to insisted that this was impossible, and the U.S. intelligence community likewise believes that this just won’t happen, for (as I mentioned in my last column) North Korea sees nuclear warheads as crucial to its survival.

The second American misconception is that China can transform North Korean behavior. We’ve always exaggerated Chinese influence on North Korea. Kim has gone out of his way to humiliate President Xi Jinping, and Chinese officials fear that this will happen again this month with a missile launch or nuclear test during China’s 19th Communist Party Congress.

The third American misconception is the assumption that the North Korean regime is near collapse, and that huffing and puffing will accelerate this. In the early 1990s my wife and I chose to be Tokyo correspondents for The Times partly because that would enable us to cover North Korea — and its impending collapse. We’re still waiting.

Readings from the Prophet Joel for Thursday, October 12, 2017

Rather than placing our confidence in governmental policy, let’s choose to place our trust in God. God responds to prayer and repentance on the part of his people.

Joel 2.19 – In response to his people the Lord said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.

As I consider the threat of war with North Korea, what would happen if God’s people throughout the world asked him to bring peace to that region? What if we combined renewed loyalty to God with our prayers? Is it possible that God would demonstrate his love through bringing a peaceful resolution to that region?

Prayers for Thursday, October 12, 2017

Dear God, today we ask you to bring about a massive prayer effort for peace with North Korea.